In Jamaica, where Dwain was born and spent his formative years, he took part in various performances, and his teachers saw his potential, and encouraged him to develop his acting skills. When he eventually completed his secondary education, he applied to study drama in an elite dramatic arts school. During his application process, he was cautioned about the limited opportunities for actors in Jamaica and advised to enrol for a joint degree programme with teaching component. He eventually took this advice because it made sense if he wanted to remain employed after graduation. Dwain’s academic aptitude eventually resulted in completing his final year in State University of New York. He went
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back to Jamaica after graduation, and as he feared he never realised his acting career, so:
I defaulted into teaching. Deep down, I wanted to do performances, but now found myself teaching drama. The degree training nevertheless has given me both the teaching and acting skills.
After teaching in Jamaica for 3 years, he migrated to the UK more than ten years ago and since then worked as examination secretary, gifted and talented coordinator, extended schools manager and head of year in School X. In his mid-30s, he likes committed, vision-oriented and organised people because he ‘love(s) to be perfect and to be right’.
Conception of school leadership and area of attraction
Dwain conceptualizes school leadership as a group of individuals steering a school through strategic visioning from one position to another in order to achieve certain targets. He says as a leader:
You must know where you want to go, and reasons for going to certain direction. Again, it depends on where you are, and the kind of people helping you to run the organisation, and where you want to take them.
Dwain is attracted to the pastoral side of school leadership, and he feels that it is through this route that he has been able to advance his school leadership aspiration of becoming an effective change agent and an important person professionally:
I am currently the head of year, I see the pastoral route – but I have recently taken up a new position this September as an assistant principal. Though I have taken up a new position, I still have some curriculum experience, but the pastoral is major and therefore more than the curriculum one. I want to make changes – I think the higher up you are the better you are able to make changes. I have been able to make changes within my classroom, my year group, and I think I need to make bigger changes, so that’s the reason why I am heading towards headship. However, that’s not where I hope to stay for I see that as a route to even bigger and greater things. I want to go into policy writing – I want to be an advisor, I want to be someone who works with the government that would direct education. I am not sure of the specific title,
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but I think I need to pass through headship going to maybe a government advisory role or policy making – so I want to make national changes, not just in a school or locally.
Dwain believes the realisation of his school leadership aspiration is incremental – moving up positional hierarchy, until he can influence policy and make meaningful changes in a much wider scale.
However, he is reticent about what particular future changes he has in mind, and as he says,
We should be changing things that are not working. At this moment, I can’t say specifically what I will like to change. I am not sure what the context is like before I make change. I am not fully aware of the context of the new job I am going into, but if I could effect change, I would want to make sure that schools become more inclusive and that there is equal, not disparity amongst people. When I say disparity, I mean not just colour, but ability, choices and opportunities, and about getting parents on-board. It is about getting more stakeholders involved. Change should happen if you understand the context, and one cannot just go in and change without knowing whether the current practices and processes are not working, and assessment of impact changes.
Understanding context is important as a change agent – as a pastoral head and in the environment in which School X serves, he could see one area in need of change, and that was in the way parents should be educated about the value of instruction from teachers. He could not understand why parents were so antagonistic toward teachers, and from his communication with them, he has come to realise that they have had bitter experiences of schooling themselves, and as such they seem to somehow translate their cynicism from own experiences of schooling to their children:
I think a lot of problems we have in school today is that the parents are contributing as well. A lot of them have had poor schooling, and so they become quite defensive and defiant when concerns are raised about their children. I think we need to educate parents and I think it is one of the missing links and I know that the government is trying to do more to have extended schools and get parents in. I think that’s just one of the missing links – parents need to understand what school is about and be more on side. Because if you try to instil certain values, by the time they go home, if it is not consistent, the change will not have an impact.
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He firmly believes that their efforts can only be supported only when parents understand through education the value of what they put in as pastoral heads, otherwise it will be undone.
Factors sustaining school leadership aspiration
For Dwain, a lot of things are unexplainable in life, one of which is his inner drive to become somebody of note – the need to be successful, to be an important person in life, and build a professional reputation as an effective change agent is what drives him. He believes it is not just for him, but for others. So if he fails, he will forever remain an unfulfilled person:
A lot of the things that I go through in life comes from my inside intrinsic internal drive to do things because some of the things that is giving me this energy to want to reach a certain position is a desire to make change. I think it is about self-fulfilment, and knowing that I can get there. I am from a deprived part of Jamaica and one of those areas that if I can attain a level of success – it will be a message to others that they could attain as well. I am making a statement to my family as well. Telling them that when we have the opportunity, we can be whatever we want to be. I want others to see and realise that there is potential in all of us.
Concomitant with this inner drive to be somebody of note is the value he places on his religious faith (to which he wants to remain private about) and support from significant others. He is quite reluctant dwelling on faith because it is often not taken seriously in academic circles, and so he feels it would not be of any value to his narrative:
Another important factor which sustains me is my religious faith. I believe in a greater Being, and I think He has empowered me – I just want to move this. I am not sure this will add anything to our discussion, but the main thing is that it sustains my ambition. I mean, I know in academic research, when you make reference to religious beliefs, and because of the situation with religious beliefs, academic people and assessors, because they are not of religious persuasions tend to frown upon us – if I say that God is going to help me, that’s fine for me, but that might not add quality or fact to some research findings as yours to some extent, so I am not going to bring up my religious faith in this conversation.
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He believes his faith does have a part in moulding him through certain things he is able to impact on others – but he does not want to discuss this further.
As an outgoing head of year, Dwain conducted his last assembly in School X and many of the students were crying because he was leaving to take up his new position as an assistant principal. They told him how he enabled them:
I think because of these small things, comments here, the compliments there, are what affect me in a positive way and thinking within myself, ‘you are helping pupils on a small scale, just imagine the amount you can do on a larger scale? Just imagine what you can do if you have greater influence as a principal and a very senior leader?’
Situations where students show their appreciation often strengthen his conviction and provide the type of ‘tangible evidence’ that his leadership aspiration is worthwhile and being realised. Closely linked to appreciations are his positive relationships with school leaders who occupy senior positions:
I think I have had support from my line manager as well – all my line managers have been pushing me and this has helped to sustain my aspiration. Lastly, I have always wanted to become an important person in life. So I think that is also helping me sustain my career aspirations.
Four things then sustain his school leadership aspiration, and they are – innate drive to build his reputation, faith, student appreciation and leaders’ support.
Confidence towards school leadership aspiration
Dwain’s confidence that he is realising his school leadership aspiration is based on planning his course of action and past experiences. To him, planning properly is about understanding job specifications of desired role, knowing what skills are needed, and the route to take and acquire them in the least amount of time:
I am very confident that I will get there because of my experiences, and how I am going about aligning myself to the skills and experiences that is required to get there. In addition, I believe that if you have a strategic plan to your
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career, you know what tools to get there; you should be able to get to that position.
For example, when he wanted to become an assistant principal three years ago, he researched what the position entails, worked closely with senior school leaders in his school to gain valuable experience and skills to meet the job specification and descriptions. Having done this, he applied for two jobs, one matching what he really wanted and the other slightly lower. A colleague or two suggested that he should go for the lesser one – “that’s a very big job; you are better off going for a lesser one”. He organised some trial interviews, reviewed his practice and achievements, and told himself, “okay, this bigger job is a practise, and I will use it to get the second one”. Fortunately, he was successful as he was appointed as an assistant principal at another school.
It has not been plain sailing for him though, for on one or two occasions, his enthusiasm was met by opposition. In one episode, he offered extra tutorials on production and drama techniques to some students during lunch time (he told them that that they could have their lunch in the classroom, so long as they tidy up before leaving). A particular senior leader who always looked for opportunities to challenge him saw it as just one more occasion to do so. During one of the tutorial sessions the senior leader ordered the students to leave the classroom at once, even though he knew that they were being supervised. Dwain felt that his efforts in trying to do something beyond his call of duty were being undermined, but he persevered, believing that his efforts would eventually pay off. Success experiences invariably reinforce his conviction that he is achieving his leadership aspiration, so long as he prepares himself properly, objectively evaluates his chances and capabilities, and works toward skills required:
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I have experienced failure before, but because I am a perfectionist. I like to get things right. I always beat myself, “Why did you not do it that way?”. I think if I fail at something it may knock my confidence for a while, but to avoid such situations, I plan, and that’s my strategy really.
Failure also serve its purpose of evaluating whether he had prepared properly, believing that he is ultimately responsible, and not on issues like discrimination.
Culture as inhibitor or facilitator of school leadership aspiration
Dwain believes that the culture of School X is a supportive one because individual who put themselves forward are giving the opportunity to do so:
You may have people who will say it is not, but I think support will be given if you are seen to be willing to want to try things. They gave me the opportunity to do the practice interview; they have always giving me the opportunity beyond my call of duty. I don’t think I would be able to get this job [new assistant principal position] if I was not allowed to do a whole lot of things that is not within my job description because I wanted to gain the experience. So a lot of things that I wrote in my personal statement were not directly related to my job as a head of year, but were directly related to the assistant principalship position. And so I think because I went to them and said, “Listen, I need to move on, give me something to do”, and so they gave me things to do. On the other hand, some might say, it is not supportive – but they have not asked, and maybe they have not put themselves forward. I remember doing Saturday detention, I am not supposed to be doing something done by senior managers – I was able to add that, and it gives me the flavour.
In a culture that is supportive, he understands that the onus is on an individual to come up with initiatives that school leaders will be impressed with. So to him, ‘the culture is supportive and not a biased one – they give it to the best ability candidate’, and he strongly believe this to be the case.
5.5 CASE EXAMPLE EIGHT – Rox